'Prince of Pot' given prison time

B.C. man says U.S. sentence is a political muzzle

By PAUL SHUKOVSKY, P-I REPORTER

Updated 10:00 pm, Tuesday, January 15, 2008

A Vancouver marijuana activist, whose arrest and pending extradition for selling marijuana seeds over the Internet outraged many Canadians, says he's cut a deal with federal prosecutors in Seattle and is going to prison.

U.S. authorities portray Marc Emery, dubbed the "Prince of Pot," as a major drug trafficker who pocketed millions of dollars and fueled organized crime.

But Emery, 50, says the prosecution was politically driven and designed to muzzle his vocal opposition to laws criminalizing pot.

Although the plea deal has not yet been formally adopted, Emery said Tuesday that he's agreed to the prosecution's terms: that he serve a minimum of five years behind bars. Most of that time would be done in a Canadian prison, he said.

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Emery had been facing a mandatory minimum term of 10 years and up to life if convicted in U.S. District Court for a crime that's rarely prosecuted in Canada.

The plea agreement calls for him to plead guilty to a three-count indictment issued in 2005 by a Seattle grand jury. He was charged with manufacturing more than a ton of marijuana and conspiring to distribute seeds and launder the profits.

As part of the deal, he must also agree to return any proceeds from the seed sales.

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"But I've never kept any of the money," said Emery, who claims it all went to support marijuana legalization activists, except for "450 bucks a week as editor of Cannabis Culture Magazine."

Emery said the plea deal is contingent on sparing two longtime associates, also charged in the indictment, any jail time.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg on Tuesday declined to comment on the plea bargain outlined by Emery. He said an extradition hearing scheduled to begin Monday in Vancouver so far hasn't been canceled.

For years, Emery has been thumbing his nose at law enforcement on both sides of the border through major cash donations to marijuana legalization efforts and public pot smoking.

As support for his allegation that his prosecution was politically motivated, Emery prominently displays on his Web site a statement from Karen Tandy, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration at the time.

To the dismay of the federal criminal justice establishment in Seattle, Tandy issued a statement after Emery's arrest in July 2005, saying: "Today's DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group -- is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also the marijuana legalization movement.

"Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery's illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on."

Greenberg last week rejected Emery's assertion that the prosecution was political.

"His politics and the marijuana legalization movement in general have nothing to do with the charges in this case or with why the charges were brought," Greenberg said.

The depth of concern on the part of many Canadians over the arrest was revealed by the massive response to a CBC documentary about Emery.

"I am incensed at the obvious infringement of our national sovereignty," wrote one viewer of the documentary to the CBC Web site. "If the U.S. tried this crap in China, it would be WWIII!"

Another viewer wrote: "We need to keep the influence of the American government at bay in Canada. This is OUR country, and OUR values are a lot different than America. It's wrong to send someone to jail for so long for something that is not considered to be a crime by most Canadians."

Canadian Sen. Larry Campbell, the former mayor of Vancouver and a former narcotics cop, told the Seattle P-I that it is "a rare, rare occurrence that anybody would be charged with seeds in Canada."

"If they extradite him to the States, there will be total outrage. The offense he is charged with carries virtually no penalty here in Canada. This is so characteristic of the drug war in your country and the hyperbole and over-the-top statements. It would make a great comedy show."